Paranoid Android
31 07 2017While considering the similarities and differences in two of the most epic fantasies of all time, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, I found an article re-imagining the Harry Potter sound track. As I have been inundated with symbols of dualism and paradox lately, the song Paranoid Android from Radiohead struck a new chord in my thoughts. Aptly named from Douglas Adams’ robot in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, the lyrics seem to reflect perfectly on the thought process of a being able to see each side of the coin.
The initial paradox utilizing the ever present power play ‘please..stop/when I am king,’ yet it is these unborn multitudes which provide the strength that even the king must ask for change, thus regarding as equal a force which cannot be controlled. Once this force is brought into being, it no longer has it’s power, and therefore is of no consequence to the king. Interestingly, it is the paranoid (side by side knowledge) part of the character which allows for the emotional to extricate it’s self from the logical and take in the lyrics defensive action.
One of the parts of the video which I thought was interesting was the rescue of Robin by an angelic like being, here representing visually the feminine in stark contrast to the bulwark of man attempting to use brute force to achieve the same goal. Apparently the video was written out without knowledge of the lyrics, thus adding more to the layers of paradox intrinsic within the song.
Since the presence of emotion ‘Come on rain down on me,’ is what provides the solution, ‘That’s it, sir, You’re leaving,’ and the video reinforces the theme ‘God loves his children, yeah,’ by providing for the sustenance of the super-hero in the tree, once again, the paradox shows it’s self as ‘the panic, the vomit,’ emerges in the video as the bird sharing food, which I am to understand is done by predigesting and vomiting it up again.
‘Curiouser and Curiouser,’ said Alice.
